1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radiation image capturing system for capturing the radiation image information of a subject with image capturing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Some medical organizations such as hospitals incorporate a radiation image capturing system combined with an RIS (Radiology Information System). According to the radiation image capturing system, in order to acquire the desired radiation image information of a patient, the doctor sets patient information including the name, gender, age, etc. of the patient, and image capturing conditions including an image capturing method, a body region to be imaged, an image capturing apparatus to be used, and exposure conditions for determining a radiation dose to be applied to the body region to be imaged. The doctor then supplies these items of information to a console installed in the radiological department. The radiological technician who handles the image capturing apparatus operates the console, and controls the image capturing apparatus to acquire the radiation image information of the patient. After predetermined image processing of the acquired radiation image information is performed, the radiation image information is supplied to a viewer which displays radiation images to be interpreted by the doctor for diagnosis.
For capturing a radiation image of the patient, the radiological technician positions of the body region to be imaged with respect to the image capturing apparatus according to the image capturing conditions, and then turns on an exposure switch of the image capturing apparatus to capture the radiation image. Radiation image information representing the captured radiation image is displayed on the console. The radiological technician confirms the radiation image information displayed on the console, and, if necessary, changes image capturing conditions including the body region to be imaged and exposure conditions, and recaptures radiation image information.
Medical organizations such as hospitals have a plurality of image capturing apparatus in the radiological department thereof, and incorporate a system wherein the respective image capturing apparatus are controlled by respective consoles. According to the related art disclosed in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2002-311524, radiation image information acquired from an image capturing apparatus (radiation image reading apparatus) specified by any console (controller) is sent to the console and processed thereby. Since the processing of radiation image information is distributed to the consoles, even if one of the consoles fails to operate, one of the other normal consoles may be selected to process radiation image information without undue interruptions.
In order for the consoles to be selected interchangeably, the consoles need to have the same processing functions. However, these common processing functions are wasteful if the consoles do not suffer a failure. In addition, the radiological department requires a space for installing those consoles.
To avoid the above drawbacks, it may be proposed to minimize the number of consoles used and to make one of the consoles able to control a plurality of image capturing apparatus.
According to the proposal, however, the console assigned to the plural image capturing apparatus is subject to an increased processing burden, and takes a long period of time until it displays radiation image information acquired from the plural image capturing apparatus. Even though the single console can process radiation image information acquired from the plural image capturing apparatus, it is unable to display a plurality of radiation images simultaneously for confirmation. Consequently, the efficiency of confirmation processing of the radiation image information is lowered.